San Francisco State University (SFSU) and the University of California Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCSFCC) propose a 56 planning program comprised of two research pilot projects on prostate and breast cancer and a training program to encourage and prepare minority nursing students to earn Ph.D. degrees focusing on cancer research and health disparities. It also includes community outreach and education components as well as minority faculty development activities incorporated within the pilot projects and program. One of the major activities of the proposed program is a recruitment activity that will result in the immediate hiring of a senior-level biobehavioral researcher at SFSU and, over the next five years, the hiring of six junior-faculty researchers-all of whom will form the core of a new Biobehavioral Research Center at SFSU.. The President of SFSU has committed $1M to help build-out this new Center, and to allocating ongoing personnel funds for a tenured, senior level professor to fill this position. The proposal is the result of extensive planning among faculty and administrators at SFSU and the UCSFCC who took into careful consideration the strengths and weaknesses of both institutions and the ways in which the institutions could complement and strengthen each other's work. Projects, programs, and activities selected for this proposal are those that will mutually benefit both partners and surrounding neighborhoods which are poorly served by the health care network. One such direct benefit will be the enrollment of individuals from minority groups into cancer prevention trials. We have assembled an outstanding Program Steering Committee of highly productive researchers who have championed both increasing opportunities for individuals traditionally under-represented in biomedical and biobehavioral researcher and the elimination of health disparities Faculty and administrators from SFSU, to develop closer connections between the UCSFCC and minority communities, to work with community organizations to develop novel programs which take advantage of the combined resources and strengths of the SFSU/UCSFCC partnership, and to work toward the development of a U-54 program grant.